And you thought American Pie was long...

If you happen to be traveling through Halberstadt, Germany in the near future, you should make sure that you stop by the Buchardi church to take part in history. On entering the church, you will hear four notes playing: F sharp, C, A, and E (being played at two different octaves). This is the second chord of John Cage's organ2/ASLSP ("As SLow aS Possible"). Now, most normal people would wonder what is so special about this. Those who ask this are not familiar with John Cage's vast body of work, including such hits as 4'33" (an entirely tacit piece), Imaginary Landscape #4 (a piece written for 12 radio receivers), and several pieces written for the Prepared Piano.

John Cage's work has also inspired concert reviews written by Cannon (two pages of white space) and myself (two pages of random sentences taken from the Internet)

This performance of organ2/ASLSP, on the other hand, has a very unique twist. While normally the song is meant to be performed in 20 minutes (still approximately 3 times the length of American Pie), this version of the song is being performed over 639 years, with sandbags placed on the notes to keep them playing; in fact, the organ is being constructed as the song is played! The next note change will occur on May 5, when the two E sandbags are removed from the keyboard. That chord will remain playing until 2008.